Writeup on Nikon 1 J1: Latest Nikon Mirroless Dslr cameras
The Nikon 1 J1 is a stylish compact system camera having a 10-megapixel “CX” format sensor and the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Boasting continuous shooting speeds of up to 60 frames per second at full resolution, Full HD video capture, an ultra-fast hybrid auto-focus system, Smart Photo Selector along with a unique Motion Snapshot Mode, the portable Nikon J1 also provides more conventional shooting modes like Programmed Auto, Aperture and Shutter Priority, as well as Metered Manual. Also aboard is usually a built-in pop-up flash using a guide volume of 5, a 3 inch rear display plus an electronic shutter. Costing $649.95 / 549.99 using a 10-30mm contact, $699.95 / 599.99 with a 10mm pancake lens, or $799.95 / 699.99 within a double-lens kit using the 10-30mm and 30-110mm zoom lenses, the Nikon 1 J1 is scheduled to be sale later this month.
The Nikon 1 J1 is mainly made out of aluminium with magnesium alloy reinforced parts and is particularly therefore heavier than you would think based on its size alone, weighing in at 234g for that body only. Additionally, it feels better quality compared to official product shots maybe have you believe. With an essentially grip-less design, the Nikon J1 is quite much a two-handed affair that requires that you support the camera’s weight within the left-hand, clutching the lens, and use your right hand for balance and operating the controls. A great a very important thing because it can make you focus on holding your camera properly, which goes far towards avoiding shake-induced blur as part of your photos.
The camera’s clean, minimalist front plate is covered with the all-new Nikon 1 lens mount. Rather then to be a scaled-down version in the good old F mount, it’s a brand spanking new design providing you with 100% electronic communication between attached lens and the camera body, thanks to endless weeks of frustration contacts. The same as around the manufacturer’s F-mount SLR cameras, there is a white dot for easy lens alignment, eventhough it has moved from the 2 o’clock position (when viewed front on) to the peak from the mount. The lenses themselves include a short silver ridge on the lens barrel, which has to be in alignment with said dot to enable someone to be capable of attach the lens to the camera. Even though this may need a little bit of getting used to, it really makes changing lenses quicker and easier.
With no lens attached, you can view the sensor sitting directly behind the plane on the bayonet mount. Such as the mount itself, the sensor is new. Measuring 13.2×8.8mm this “CX” format imaging chip has double the amount surface area of the biggest imagers employed in compact and bridge cameras such as the Fujifilm X10 and S100FS, but only about 50 % of the spot of any standard Four Thirds sensor. In linear terms, a Four Thirds chip features a 1.36x longer diagonal than the Nikon CX imager. Considering the fact that Four Thirds carries a 2x focal length multiplier, the CX “crop factor” ends up to around 2.72, and thus a 10mm lens has approximately a similar angle of view like a 27.2mm lens upon an FX or 35mm film camera. The Nikon 1 Nikkor 10-30mm standard zoom is thus similar to a 27.2-81.6mm (or, practically speaking, 28-80mm) FX lens with regards to its angle-of-view range.
Other Nikon J1’s faceplate is practically empty, featuring just the lens release, a receiver for your optional ML-L3 infrared handheld remote control, two narrow slits to the microphone either side of the lens, plus an AF assist/self-timer lamp. There is not any grip in any respect on the front of the Nikon 1 J1.
There’s two ways of powering on the Nikon 1 J1 and Nikon 1 V1. You may either utilize on/off button sitting near the shutter release or, should you have a collapsible-barrel the len’s attached, you can easily press the unlocking button for the lens barrel and turn the zoom ring to unlock the lens, an act that creates you to exchange on automatically. It becomes an ingenious solution as you need to unlock the lens for shooting anyway. Start-up takes just over another - not even attempt to write home about however decent and entirely adequate.
It is possible to frame your shots utilizing the rear screen - there is not any electronic viewfinder as on the V1 model, a vital distinction between both the. The LCD screen is usually a three-inch, 460,000-dot display that features wide viewing angles, great definition and accurate colours but only so-so visibility in strong daylight. We missed the EVF aided by the J1 alongside the V1, in a choice of bright sunlit conditions or while using the 30-110mm telezoom lens as holding the camera as much as eye-level helped to stabilise the lens and get away from trembling camera.
The control layout is quite peculiar. The Nikon 1 J1 carries a small, rear-mounted mode dial that lacks a lot of the shooting modes that are usually entirely on similar dials - most notably P, A, S and M - although it has enough room to accommodate them. These modes can be obtained for the J1 however you should dive into your rather long-winded but not entirely logical menu to discover them. The J1’s mode dial merely has four settings, Photo, Video, Motion Snapshot and Smart Photo Selector. The four-way controller also has four functions mapped onto its Up, Right, Down and Left buttons; including AE/AF-Lock, exposure compensation, flash mode and self-timer, respectively. Although this isn’t a bad selection of functions, the reality that there isn’t a ISO button will doubtlessly produce a wide range of photographers serious about purchasing the Nikon J1 being unhappy.
There exists a button around the rear labelled “F” but alas, this is not a programmable function button. In Photo mode, it enables you to quickly select from the continuous shooting modes, while in Video mode it lets you toggle between regular and slow-motion recording. There are 2 more essential controls on the back from the camera, including a scroll wheel throughout the four-way pad along with a rocker switch marked with a loupe icon. The scroll wheel can be used to create the shutter speed in Manual and Shutter Priority modes (when you have found them inside menu, that may be), even though the rocker switch controls the aperture. The reason it has a loupe icon next to it really is that this control is needed to focus while on an image to confirm for critical focus in Playback mode. Last of all, you can find four small buttons about the navigation pad, flush up against the rear panel of the camera, including Display Mode, Playback, Menu and Delete.
What exactly are the ones shooting modes on the mode dial information about? The Photo or Still Image mode, marked which has a green camera icon, is to may wish to be usually. With the mode dial set to the present position, you’ll be able to pick your desired exposure mode from your menu. The Nikon J1’s Scene Auto Selector is a great auto mode the location where the camera analyses the scene facing its lens and picks exactly what thinks may be the right way of that particular scene. You can even select one from the conventional PASM modes, which provide you with full menu access plus the capability to manually set the aperture, shutter speed, or both (Program AE Shift will come in P mode). ISO and white balance can even be manually selected, only on the menu, as stated previously.
Naturally there’s AWB and auto ISO likewise, together with the latter coming in three flavours (Auto 100-400, 100-800 or 100-3200) helping you to specify how high you need you to visit when the light gets low. You may also choose between three AF Area modes, including Auto Area, the place that the camera takes power over what it focusses on (this is not an incredible mode to possess because your default since the camera obviously can’t read your thoughts and may target something different than your actual subject); Single Point, in which you can select one among 135 AF points by first hitting OK after which moving the active AF point round the frame while using four-way pad; and Subject Tracking, in which you pick your subject, press OK and permit the camera to track that subject the way it moves around, providing this doesn’t happen leave the frame of course.
The Nikon 1 J1 posseses an intriguing hybrid auto-focus system that combines contrast- and phase-difference detection likewise because the Fujifilm F300EXR did. This allows the Nikon 1 J1 to target extremely quickly in good light, even using a moving subject. This company claims the Nikon 1 system cameras are the fastest-focusing machines on the planet, this also matches our experience - as long as there’s enough light. When light levels drop, you switches to contrast-detect AF which, though faster than on most cameras, isn’t nearly you’d like another method. It’s always your camera that decides which AF method to use - an individual doesn’t have a affect this.
Usually, the J1 will often only head for contrast detection when light levels are low. In good light, i was able to take sharp photos of fast-moving subjects. The Nikon J1 certainly doesn’t disappoint here. Manual focusing is usually possible, even though Nikon 1 lenses would not have focus rings. In order to focus manually, you first of all should hit the AF button, choose MF, press OK then utilize scroll wheel to focus. To assist you using this, the Nikon J1 magnifies the central the main image and displays a rudimentary focus scale down the right side with the frame - but those include the only focusing aids you get. There is no peaking function available as on some rival models.
The J1 posseses an electronic shutter (the V1 also offers an analog shutter). Itrrrs very silent (the target confirmation beep can be disabled through the menu) and allows the application of shutter speeds you’d like 1/16,000th of a second and, together with the Electronic Hi setting selected, permits you to shoot full-resolution stills at 60 frames per second. Note however that while this is the major achievement, it’s tied to a buffer that may only hold 12 raw files. Additionally, the use of this mode precludes AF tracking - you should lower the frame rate to 10fps if you would like that -, plus the viewfinder goes blank as the pictures are being taken. The linksys e2000 application we can easily consider where shooting full-resolution stills at 60fps could really come in handy is AE bracketing for HDR imaging. When it reaches this rate, several 5 bracketed shots might be drawn in lower than 0.1 second, rendering small movements that could otherwise pose alignment problems - like leaves being blown within the wind - a non-issue. Alas, the Nikon J1 will not offer this type of feature - in reality no offer autoexposure bracketing at all.
Selling it to the playback quality mode, the Nikon 1 J1 has some pleasant surprises here. First of all, you is usually set to shoot Full HD footage, therefore you even arrive at select from 1080p @ 30fps or 1080i @ 60fps, dependant upon whether you’d like to work with progressive or interlaced video. If you do not need Full HD, additionally, there are 720p @ 60fps, that’s really smooth and still counts as hi-d. Secondly, you get full manual treatments for exposure in video mode. It is deemed an option; you won’t have to shoot in M mode but you can in the event that’s things you need. Thirdly, you obtain fast, continuous AF in video mode, and delay pills work well, particularly in good light. Movies are compressed utilizing the H.264 codec and stored as MOV files. You will discover separate shutter release buttons for stills and video, and thanks to this - in addition to the massive processing power in the Nikon J1 - you can take multiple full-resolution stills at the same time recording HD video. This works in reversed order too - you’ll be able to capture a show clip regardless of whether the mode dial is with the Still Image position, by simply pressing the red movie shutter release. We’ve found that in such cases you will record the playback quality at 720p/60fps.
And also effective at shooting regular movies in HD quality, the Nikon 1 J1 could also shoot video at 400fps for slow-motion playback. The resolution is lower and also the aspect ratio is definitely an ultra-widescreen 2.67:1, even so the quality is adequate for YouTube, Vimeo and so forth. These videos are replayed at 30fps, which is a lot more than 13x slower as opposed to capture speed of 400fps, permitting you to get creative and show the world numerous interesting phenomena that happen straight away to look at in real time. The Nikon J1 goes even further by providing a 1200fps video mode, but the resolution and overall quality is simply too poor to the to become genuinely useful.
Another icon on the mode dial means Smart Photo Selector. This feature allows your camera to capture a minimum of 20 photos with a single press with the shutter release, including some that have been taken before fully depressing the button. You analyses the average person pictures from the series and discards 15 ones, keeping the five it thinks would be best with regards to sharpness and composition. This feature could be genuinely useful when photographing fast action and fleeting moments.
Finally, there is a so-called Motion Snapshot mode when the camera records a concise high-definition movie - whose buffering starts for a half-press in the shutter release, so again includes events which have happened prior to the button was fully depressed - as well as requires a still photograph. The film as well as the still image are held in separate files however the camera can combine them into a single slow-motion clip with vocals. It’s fun but we can not really envision people employing this shooting mode on a regular basis. (In the event you look at the video using a computer, it’s going to play back at normal speed, without sound, so this mode is really only interesting if you observe the clip in-camera or hook the digital camera approximately an HDTV through an HDMI cable.)
The Nikon J1 stores pics and vids on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and props up the fastest UHS-I speed class. The camera runs on a lesser EN-EL20 battery to its V1 government, which is consequently capable of producing considerably less shots on one charge, managing around 230, eventhough it does help to create you body more compact. The camera’s tripod socket is manufactured out of metal and is particularly in line while using lens’ optical axis. This actually also shows that changing batteries or cards isn’t feasible as the J1 is placed on a tripod, as being the hinges from the battery/card compartment door are extremely nearby the tripod mount.
So, how did we love to while using the Nikon 1 J1? On one side, we liked it lots. In good light, its auto-focus method is indeed faster than essentially anything we’ve used until now, the ability to track and lock focus on a selection of truly fast-moving subjects, and yielding plenty of sharp images in situations where our keeper rates have never been extremely high. Additionally, its high-speed continuous shooting modes have allowed us to capture interesting moments that we’d have surely missed when we had used a slower camera. The built-in pop-up flash proved more useful what has modest guide number might suggest, while using clever design minimising red-eye.
However, the Nikon J1 have their share of frustrating idiosyncrasies you start with the consumer interface that makes you dive in to the menu to gain access to functions as basic as exposure mode, ISO speeds and white balance. While Nikon obviously cannot add extra buttons into a finished product, they are able to no less than make “F” button customisable by way of a firmware update. Also, as there is a separate button for exposure compensation - the great thing - I didn’t find a way to activate an active histogram, although it would have made exposure compensation much more useful and simple to make use of. Again, this can oftimes be fixed in firmware.
We also missed the V1’s smooth, high-resolution electronic viewfinder, particularly bright light or while using the telephoto lens which doesn’t lend itself well to being held out at arms length. The J1 merely has a glass dust shield since it is defense against unwanted debris, rather than more proactive sensor cleaning unit the V1 offers, and also the smaller battery shows that you will have to buy an added one to get to the day’s heavy shooting. Deficiency of an accessory port means that almost not one of the Nikon 1 accessories are appropriate for the J1, such as external flash and GPS unit.
Yet another thing we did not like was that the camera would always show the photo just taken for a couple of seconds onscreen, so we wouldn’t are able to turn this instant postview function completely off (although you can at any rate cancel it via a half-press in the shutter release). Finally, while the camera is generally fast and responsive, the camera takes much too long to awaken from sleep mode if this may be idle for a while, resulting in several missed shots.
That being said, the Nikon 1 J1 is really a smaller than average compact, high-performance system camera that they like its larger could use a number of tweaks to the program to increase suit the requirements serious amateurs. The intended target audience of casual users will enjoy it because of its sheer speed, built-in flash, compact size and the fun features there is. Allow us to now see how the Nikon 1 J1 fared from the image quality department.
Tags: j1, mirroless cameras, nikon, nikon 1, nikon 1 j1, nikon 1 v1, nikon cameras, nikon1, v1